Construction and Renovation
While affirmative procurement is commonly associated with paper and non-paper office products, EPA designated - and Federal agencies are purchasing - a range of recycled content construction products as part of construction and renovation projects. Agencies are also purchasing or specifying energy-efficient, environmentally preferable, and biobased products for construction and renovation projects.
Department of Energy. The Washington, DC Office of Operations' contract for replacement of carpeting includes guidelines for carpet acquisition and disposal. The program began after several DOE offices sought alternatives to landfilling old carpet, and in Fall 1999, DOE issued a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) that specified minimum recycled content standards and removal requirements. The Statement of Work provided for the minimum percentage of recycled content face fiber and backing tile in all new acquisitions of carpeting and required that contractors recycle old carpeting. The BPA is designed to be the contractual framework of a five-year project to replace of 1.2 million square feet of carpeting in DOE's Washington, DC and Germantown, Maryland office complexes.
DOE issued the first carpet replacement contract for 120,000 square yard of carpeting in November, 2000. The winning bidder-Collins and Aikman Floorcoverings-offered a bid that exceeded the minimum standards detailed in the BPA by committing to installing carpet with 30-40 percent recycled content face fiber and 100 percent recycled content carpet backing. Collins and Aikman also committed to recycling 100 percent of the old carpeting. DOE estimated that the recycling provisions alone in this contract alone will divert 592 tons of carpeting from disposal and the recycled content in the new carpeting will equate to 226 tons of carpeting that would have otherwise been landfilled. To date, 19 tons of carpet have been recycled into various consumer and industrial products such as lumber products, plastic car parts and parking blocks, automobile bumpers, substances to improve concrete, and other carpet products.
For more information about the Department of Energy's carpeting contract, contact: Terry Butler at Terry.Butler@hq.doe.gov, (202) 586-5201.
Pentagon Construction and Renovation. The Department of Defense's Washington Headquarters at the Pentagon is integrating the use of recycled content products and construction debris recycling into many of the Pentagon's construction and renovation contracts. The Pentagon staff incorporated affirmative procurement language into an interior renovation contract that resulted in the use of 420,000 square feet of gypsum wallboard that featured 100 percent recycled content paper on the surface; 232,000 square feet of recycled acoustical ceiling tiles; 53,500 linear feet of 28 percent recycled steel wall studs; and 18,800 square feet of recycled carpet tile. The parking lot renovation project resulted in the use of 152,396 tons of asphalt recycled from the existing parking lot; 20,320 square feet of concrete containing ground blast furnace slag; and 8,420 linear feet of 10 percent recycled crumb rubber.
The on-going renovation of the Pentagon, which is being performed under a performance-based contract, requires extensive use of recycled content, energy-efficient, and environmentally preferable products.
For more information about the use of recycled content construction products at the Pentagon, contact Robert Cox at rcox@osd.pentagon.mil, (703) 693-3765.
